1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a resource requesting process of an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to a recent image forming apparatus, in addition to the image forming function which is inherent to the image forming apparatus, a communication interface and a hard disk are provided, a plurality of apparatuses are connected by a network, and data is transmitted and received among the apparatuses and can be stored into the hard disk.
Among the image forming apparatuses connected by the network may be one which obtains resources necessary for printing from a predetermined server on the network and executes the printing, as has been proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-215358.
According to that proposal, the resources necessary for printing can be obtained by inquiring of the server of a location of related information necessary for printing.
However, it is necessary to provide the server to be permanently stationed at the network, and is troublesome in terms of setting and managing. Therefore, there has been proposed an apparatus in which devices transmit and receive information without the server, by using a peer-to-peer communication technique instead of a client-server type communication technique and a distributed processing is realized (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-074881).
There has also been proposed an apparatus in which although re-obtaining performance of data is important in the case of downloading of the data by a network, setting for inhibiting deletion of the data can be made by an apparatus of a data providing source (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-110832).